Liber CLXI
O.T.O.
Concerning the Law of Thelema

O.T.O.
Issued by Order

The following epistle first appeared in
The Equinox III(1) (Detroit: Universal, 1919), and offers specific
instances of the application of the various programs and policies
outlined in other papers such as The Open Letter. As remarked
elsewhere in this issue, certain programs have yet to be
implemented, and some will require modification in order to
conform with the laws governing non-profit religious organizations
in various countries.—H.B.

LIBER CLXI
O.T.O.
Concerning the Law of Thelema

AN EPISTLE WRITTEN TO PROFESSOR L—
B— K— who also himself waited for the New Æon, concerning the
O.T.O. and its solution of divers problems of Human Society,
particularly those concerning Property, and now reprinted for
General Circulation.

My Dear Sir,—

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I was glad to receive your letter of inquiry with regard to the
Message of the Master Therion.

It struck you naturally enough that on the surface there is
little distinction between the New Law and the canon of Anarchy; and
you ask, “How is the Law to be fulfilled in the case of two boys who
want to eat the same orange?” But since only one boy (at most) can
eat the orange, it is evident that one of them is mistaken in
supposing that it is essential to his Will to eat it. The question
is to be decided in the good old way by fighting for it. All that we
ask is that the fighting should be done chivalrously, with respect
to the courage of the vanquished. "As brothers fight ye!" In other
words, there is only this difference from our present state of
society, that manners are improved. There are many persons who are
naturally slaves, who have no stomach to fight, who tamely yield all
to any one strong enough to {227} take it. These persons cannot accept the
Law. This also is understood and provided for in The Book of the
Law: “The slaves shall serve.” But it is possible for any apparent
slave to prove his mastery by fighting his oppressors, even
as now; but he has this additional chance in our system, that his
conduct will be watched with kindly eye by our authorities, and his
prowess rewarded by admission to the ranks of the master-class.
Also, he will be given fair play.

You may now ask how such arrangements are possible. There is only
one solution to this great problem. It has always been admitted that
the ideal form of government is that of a “benevolent despot,” and
despotisms have only fallen because it is impossible in practice to
assure the goodwill of those in power. The rules of chivalry, and
those of Bushido in the East, gave the best chance to develop rulers
of the desired type. Chivalry failed principally because it was
confronted with new problems; to-day we know perfectly what those
problems were, and are able to solve them. It is generally
understood by all men of education that the general welfare is
necessary to the highest development of the particular; and the
troubles of America are in great part due to the fact that the men
in power are often utterly devoid of all general education.

I would call your attention to the fact that many monastic
orders, both in Asia and in Europe, have succeeded in surviving all
changes of government, and in securing pleasant and useful lives for
their members. But this has been possible only because restricted
life was enjoined. However, there were orders of military monks,
like the Templars, who grew and prospered exceedingly. You recall
that the Order of the Temple was only overthrown by a treacherous
coup {228} d'état on the part of a King and of a Pope who saw
their reactionary, obscurantist, and tyrannical programme menaced by
those knights who did not scruple to add the wisdom of the East to
their own large interpretation of Christianity, and who represented
in that time a movement towards the light of learning and of
science, which has been brought to fruition in our own times by the
labours of the Orientalists from Von Hammer-Purgstall and Sir
William Jones to Professor Rhys Davids and Madame Blavatsky, to say
nothing of such philosophers as Schopenhauer, on the one hand; and
by the heroic efforts of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and Spencer, on
the other.

I have no sympathy with those who cry out against property, as if
what all men desire were of necessity evil; the natural instinct of
every man is to own, and while man remains in this mood, attempts to
destroy property must not only be nugatory, but deleterious to the
community. There is no outcry against the rights of property where
wisdom and kindness administer it. The average man is not so
unreasonable as the demagogue, for his selfish ends, pretends to be.
The great nobles of all time have usually been able to create a
happy family of their dependents, and unflinching loyalty and
devotion have been their reward. The secret has been principally
this, that they considered themselves noble as well in nature as in
name, and thought it foul shame to themselves if any retainer met
unnecessary misfortune. The upstart of to-day lacks this feeling;
he must try constantly to prove his superiority by exhibiting his
power; and harshness is his only weapon. In any society where each
person has his allotted place, and that a place with its own special
honour, mutual respect and self-respect {229} are born. Every man is in
his own way a king, or at least heir to some kingdom. We have many
examples of such society to-day, notably universities and all
associations of sport. No. 5 in the Harvard crew does not turn round
in the middle of the race and reproach No. 4 for being merely No. 4;
nor do the pitcher and catcher of a crack baseball nine revile each
other because their tasks are different. It is to be noted that
wherever team-work is necessary social tolerance is an essential.
The common soldier is invested with a uniform as well as his
officer, and in any properly trained army he is taught his
own canons of honour and self-respect. This feeling, more than mere
discipline or the possession of weapons, makes the soldier more than
a match morally for a man not so clothed in proper reverence
for himself and his profession.

University men who have passed through some crisis of hardship or
temptation have often told me that the backbone of their endurance
was the “old shop.” Much of this is evidently felt by those who talk
of re-establishing the old trade guilds. But I fear I digress.

I have, however, now placed before you the main points of my
thesis. We need to extend to the whole of society the peculiar
feeling which obtains in our most successful institutions, such as
the services, the universities, the clubs. Heaven and hell are
states of mind; and if the devil be really proud, his hell can hurt
him little.

It is this, then, that I desire to emphasize: those who accept
the New Law, the Law of the Æon of Horus, the crowned and
conquering child who replaces in our theogony the suffering and
despairing victim of destiny, the Law of Thelema, which is Do What
Thou Wilt, those who accept it ({230} I say) feel themselves immediately
to be kings and queens. “Every man and every woman is a star” is the
first statement of the Book of the Law. In the pamphlet, The Law of
Liberty, this theme is embroidered with considerable care, and I
will not trouble you with further quotation.

You will say swiftly that the heavenly state of mind thus induced
will be hard put to it to endure hunger and cold. The thought
occurred also to our founder, and I will endeavour to put before you
the skeleton of his plan to avert such misfortune (or at least such
ordeal) from his adherents.

In the first place he availed himself of a certain organization
of which he was offered the control, namely, the O.T.O. This great
Order accepted the Law immediately, and was justified by the sudden
and great revival of its activities. The Law was given to our
founder twelve years ago; the O.T.O. came into his hands eight years
later, in the vulgar year 1912. It must not be supposed that he was
idle during the former period; but he was very young, and had no
idea of taking practical measures to extend the Dominion of the Law:
he pursued his studies.

However, with the sudden growth of the O.T.O. from 1912 E.V.
onward, he began to perceive a method of putting the Law into
general practice, of making it possible for men and women to live in
accordance with the precepts laid down in The Book of the Law, and
to accomplish their wills; I do not say to gratify their passing
fancies, but to do that for which they were intended by their own
high destiny. For in this universe, since it is in equilibrium and
the sum total of its energies is therefore zero, every force therein
is equal and opposite to the resultant of all the other forces
combined. The Ego is therefore always exactly equal to the Non-Ego, {231}
and the destruction of an atom of helium would be as catastrophic to
the conservation of matter and energy as if a million spheres were
blotted into annihilation by the will of God. I am well aware that
from this point you could draw me subtly over the tiger-trap of the
Freewill Controversy; you would make it difficult for me even to say
that it is better to fulfil one's destiny consciously and joyously
than like a stone; but I am on my guard. I will return to plain
politics and common sense.

Our Founder, then, when he thought over this matter from a purely
practical standpoint, remembered those institutions with which he
was familiar, which flourished. He bethought himself of monasteries
like Monsalvat, of universities like Cambridge, of golf clubs like
Hoylake, of social clubs like the Cocoa-Tree, of co-operative
societies, and, having sojourned in America, of Trusts. In his mind
he expanded each of these to its nth power, he blended them
like the skilled chemist that he was, he considered their
excellences and their limitations; in a word, he meditated
profoundly upon the whole subject, and he concluded with the vision
of a perfect society.

He saw all men free, all men wealthy, all men respected; and he
planted the seed of his Utopia by handing over his own house to the
O.T.O., the organization which should operate his plan, under
certain conditions. What he had foreseen occurred; he had possessed
one house; by surrendering it he became owner of a thousand houses.
He gave up the world, and found it at his feet.

Eliphas Lévi, the great magician of the middle of the last
century, whose philosophy made possible the extraordinary outburst
of literature in France in the fifties and sixties by {232} its doctrine
of the self-sufficiency of Art (“A fine style is an aureole of
holiness” is one phrase of his), prophesies of the Messiah in a
remarkable passage. It will be seen that our founder, born as he was
to the purple, has fulfilled it.

I have not the volume at my side, living as I am this hermit life
in New Hampshire, but its gist is that Kings and Popes have not
power to redeem the world because they surround themselves with
splendour and dignity. They possess all that other men desire, and
therefore their motives are suspect. If any person of position, says
Lévi, insists upon living a life of hardship and inconvenience when
he could do otherwise, then men will trust him, and he will be able
to execute his projects for the general good of the commonwealth.
But he must naturally be careful not to relax his austerities as his
power increases. Make power and splendour incompatible, and the
social problem is solved.

“Who is that ragged man gnawing a dry crust by yonder cabin?”
“That is the President of the Republic.” Where honour is the only
possible good to be gained by the exercise of power, the man in
power will strive only for honour.

The above is an extreme case; no one need go so far nowadays; and
it is important that the President should have been used to terrapin
and bécasse flambé before he went into politics.

You will ask how this operated, and how the system inaugurated by
him works. It is simple. Authority and prestige in the Order are
absolute, but while the lower grades give increase of privilege, the
higher give increase of service. Power in the Order depends,
therefore, directly on the willingness to aid others. Tolerance also
is taught in the higher grades; so that no man can be even an
Inspector of {233} the Order unless he be equally well disposed to all
classes of opinion. You may have six wives or none; but if you have
six, you are required not to let them talk all at once, and if you
have none, you are required to refrain from boring other people with
dithyrambs upon your own virtue. This tolerance is taught by a
peculiar course of instruction whose nature it would be imprudent as
well as impertinent to disclose; I will ask you to accept my word
that it is efficient.

With this provision, it is easy to see that intolerance and
snobbery are impossible; for the example set by members of the
universally respected higher grades is against this. I may add that
members are bound together by participation in certain mysteries,
which lead to a synthetic climax in which a single secret is
communicated whose nature is such as to set at rest for ever all
division on those fertile causes of quarrel, sex and religion. The
possession of this secret gives the members entitled to it such calm
of authority that the perfect respect which is their due never fails
them.

Thus, then, you see brethren dwelling together in unity; and you
wonder whether the lust of possession may not cause division. On the
contrary, this matter has been the excellent cause of general
prosperity.

In the majority of cases property is wasted. One has six houses; three
remain unlet. One has 20 percent of the stock of a certain company; and
is frozen out by the person with 51%.

There are a thousand dangers and drawbacks to the possession of
this world's goods which thin the hairs of those who cling to them.

In the O.T.O. all this trouble is avoided. Such property {234} as any
member of the Order wills is handed over to the Great Officers
either as a gift, or in trust. In the latter case it is administered
in the interest of the donor. Property being thus pooled, immense
economies are effected. One lawyer does the work of fifty; house
agents let houses instead of merely writing misleading entries in
books; the O.T.O. controls the company instead of half-a-dozen
isolated and impotent stockholders. Whatever the O.T.O. findeth to
do, it does with all its might; none dare oppose the power of a
corporation thus centralised, thus ramified. To become a member of
the O.T.O. is to hitch your wagon to a star.

But if you are poor? If you have no property? The O.T.O. still
helps you. There will always be unoccupied houses which you can tend
rent-free; there is certainty of employment, if you desire it, from
other members. If you keep a shop, you may be sure that
O.T.O. members will be your customers; if you are a doctor or a
lawyer, they will be your clients. Are you sick? The other members
hasten to your bed to ask of what you are in need. Do you need
company? The Profess-House of the O.T.O. is open to you. Do you
require a loan? The Treasurer-General of the O.T.O. is empowered to
advance to you, without interest, up to the total amount of your
fees and subscriptions. Are you on a journey? You have the right to
the hospitality of the Master of a Lodge of the O.T.O. for three
days in any one place. Are you anxious to educate your children? The
O.T.O. will fit them for the battle. Are you at odds with a brother?
The Grand Tribunal of the O.T.O. will arbitrate, free of charge,
between you. Are you moribund? You have the power to leave the total
amount that you have paid into the Treasury {235} of the O.T.O. to whom
you will. Will your children be orphan? No; for they will be adopted
if you wish by the Master of your Lodge, or by the Grand Master of
the O.T.O.

In short, there is no circumstance of life in which the O.T.O. is
not both sword and shield.

You wonder? You reply that this can only be by generosity, by
divine charity of the high toward the low, of the rich toward the
poor, of the great toward the small? You are a thousand times right;
you have understood the secret of the O.T.O.

That such qualities can flourish in an extended community may
surprise so eminent and so profound a student of humanity as
yourself; yet examples abound of practices the most unnatural and
repugnant to mankind which have continued through centuries. I need
not remind you of Jaganath and of the priests of Attis, for extreme
cases.

A fortiori, then, it must be possible to train men to
independence, to tolerance, to nobility of character, and to good
manners, and this is done in the O.T.O. by certain very efficacious
methods which (for I will not risk further wearying you) I will not
describe. Besides, they are secret. But beyond them is the supreme
incentive; advancement in the Order depends almost entirely on the
possession of such qualities, and is impossible without it. Power
being the main desire of man, it is only necessary so to condition
its possession that it be not abused.

Wealth is of no account in the O.T.O. Above a certain grade all
realisable property, with certain obvious exceptions—things in
daily use, and the like—must be vested in the O.T.O. Property may
be enjoyed in accordance with the dignity of the adept of such
grade, but he cannot leave it idle {236} or sequestrate it from the common
good. He may travel, for instance, as a railway magnate travels; but
he cannot injure the commonwealth by setting his private car athwart
the four main lines.

Even intellectual eminence and executive ability are at a certain
discount in the Order. Work is invariably found for persons
possessing these qualifications, and they attain high status and
renown for their reward; but not advancement in the Order, unless
they exhibit a talent for government, and this will be exhibited far
more by nobility of character, firmness and suavity, tact and
dignity, high honour and good manners, those qualities (in short)
which are, in the best minds, natural predicates of the word
gentleman. The knowledge of this fact not only inspires confidence
in the younger members, but induces them to emulate their seniors.

In order to appreciate the actual working of the system, it is
necessary to visit our Profess-Houses. (It is hoped that some will
shortly be established in the United States of America.) Some are
like the castles of mediaeval barons, some are simple cottages; the
same spirit rules in all. It is that of perfect hospitality. Each
one is free to do as he will; and the luxury of this enjoyment is
such that he becomes careful to avoid disturbance of the equal right
of others. Yet, the authority of the Abbot of the House being
supreme, any failure to observe this rule is met with appropriate
energy. The case cannot really arise, unless circumstances are quite
beyond the ordinary; for the period of hospitality is strictly
limited, and extensions depend upon the goodwill of the Abbot.
Naturally, as it takes all sorts to make a world—and we rejoice in
that diversity which makes our unity so {237} exquisite a miracle—some
Profess-Houses will suit one person, some another. And birds of a
feather will learn to flock together. However, the well-being of the
Order and the study of its mysteries being at the heart of every
member of the Order, there is inevitably one common ground on which
all may meet.

I fear that I have exhausted your patience with this letter, and
I beg you to excuse me. But as you know, out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh ... you are perfectly right to retort that it
need not speak so much!